You already missed it.

They say you have to live here--or just be really freakin' lucky--to hit the salmonfly hatch just right. There are salmonflies in Missoula's rivers (lots of them), but right now they're underneath about 20,000 cfs of what hydrologists would refer to as "heavy suspended sediment load." In other words, our water is high, cold and shit brown.

The infamous tailwater complex of the Henry's Fork in Idaho is a different story altogether. Dams suck, except when they don't. The Fork is widely known to receive one of the earliest salmonfly hatches in the country, so with strong reports coming in of stonefly shucks turning up on bridges and willows, two days of bright sun in the forecast and nothing else to do, we headed south.

We were graciously hosted (read: guided) by my buddy from Idaho Falls who just happens to sell some very nice fiberglass drift boats down there for a living. So, if you're in the market for a sweet rowing boat, go buy one from him. No, not that company. The ones that don't suck, fall apart, or weigh 600 lbs. There ya go.

For the day and a half of nice weather we go out of the deal, the fishing was solid. Not off the hook, but hey, when you just drove five hours to escape dreary Missoula weather and a run off of Biblical proportions, seeing any trout eat a #4 salmonfly dry is just plain awesome.

Then the weather turned to shit, we bailed and the river blew out. As my buddy says, "we timed it perfectly." Sound fun? Better luck next year...you already missed it.

Wow for Wednesday.

Lookout for La Niña from Evan Phillippe on Vimeo.

An interesting phenomenon around here at these little Mom & Pop ski areas that we frequent in western Montana is the Powder Wednesday. When you're in the business of selling people rides up a snow-covered mountain, I'm not sure why you would ever close your lifts down mid-week, particularly during an epic winter like the one that's currently kicking us in the mouth. But they do. Whether it's to save money, give the employees the day off, or simply let the snow have a chance to recover (deepen?), closing your doors on Tuesday--when inadvertently timed with an approaching storm cycle that rolls in Monday afternoon--can lead to sickeningly epic shit Wednesday morning. Freshies? Try "waisties."

"Those fish are spawning and we will try to get them to take a fly as we roll it past their nose."

Missoulian outdoor columnist and host of the weekly Montana Outdoor Radio Show Mark Ward wrote this article about "fly fishing" for steelhead that ran in the Jan. 27 issue.

Come on, Mark. As a somewhat credible, somewhat locally-known outdoor "personality," try not to come off as a total JONG. It's obvious you don't know jack about fly fishing for steelhead-or fly fishing in general for that matter-but at least have the nerve to sack up and tell it like it is:

"Fly fishing" for steelhead does not involve 11 foot nymph rigs, six BB split shot and two "black and red nymph flies" tethered to 15lb Maxima. Nor does it involve dragging said rig across the faces of a few thousand exhausted fish attempting to spawn in gin clear water while they sit literally trapped at the base of a giant, non-negotiable concrete wall. If you had even the most basic appreciation of the history, culture and inherently existentialist nature of fly fishing for steelhead, then you would know it certainly does not involve yahoos like you and your buddy hooking 20 fish in a day. And I swear on the grave of Roderick-Haig Brown and everything that is holy in this sport: fly fishing for steelhead does not have a goddamn thing to do with "rubbing a little crawdad smelly jelly" on your fly. Fuck.

Hey, that looks like a good hole!

But you know what all of those things do have to do with? Snagging spawning steelhead off of their redds and bragging about it in the newspaper. I mean, the quote of your buddy's you used is priceless. Really? You're lucky the Missoula PETA freaks haven't found you yet!

Now, I'll grant you that the North and South Fork steelhead fisheries have become all-out meat markets, with fishermen from all walks of life throwing every conceivable piece of hardware directly on to the skulls of the biggest fish they will likely ever see. And that's fine. Though I'll never be caught dead setting foot in the North Fork with the intention of fishing for those rotting, doomed husks of what were once magnificent creatures, I have been known to occasionally nymph the muddy ditch we affectionately know as the South Fork and get some steelhead jizz on my waders. But at least I can't see them, and I'm not afraid to admit what it is: glorified snagging with a fly pole.

So if it cranks your stoke to rip the hatchery brats off redds as they bump their faces against the foundation of Dworshak, fine. I couldn't give a damn how you choose to fish for steelhead. Just know that it's unethical, it's sleazy and it is without a doubt anything but fly fishing for steelhead. So please don't write about it like it is, and stay the hell out of the way of me and anyone else fly fishing for them in a respectable manner.

By the way, the technique you described is far easier to chunk on a spinning rod. The rig sinks down "in the zone" faster, and then you don't have to like, fly cast and stuff.

Next time Mark, try these. They work waaaaay better than those silly flies.


And lastly, a priceless second opinion on the matter:

Voy a pescar en la mañana.

Work/school-wise, this has already been a kick-ass week, and it's only Wednesday. Gettin' A's and gettin' published makes for one happy journalism student. But we still have a problem.

Seems I can't get those ocean-mutant, leech-slurping rainbow trout off my mind. All week I've been sitting here at the computer scripting fascinating prose about DUI charges or city elections, while my mind is completely preoccupied with how many turns of purple guinea I'm going to use for the collar on my next bug.

I need to get down to the Salmon ASAP. I want to be southbound on 93 in a rig full of buddies, dogs, and gear. I want to spend more hours each day in soggy waders than out of them. I want to stand nuts-deep in cold, green water watching my line swing. I want the tug. Mostly, I just want to lounge on a gravel bar in an ecstatic, half-dazed stupor with a spey rod and my dog, soaking up everything that is a steelhead river in the fall.

I just remembered that I was planning on either fixing my increasingly leaky waders this week, or replacing them. That was tomorrow's project. Shit. I guess my feet are gonna be wet and frozen again. They'll thaw out on the drive home.

"Hang Around Until You Catch One"

That's what the motel sign says. Good marketing and sound advice to steelhead anglers on the Salmon River this time of year. And from the looks of things, between the hunters and fishermen, business is hopping right now...we can barely find a place to park in front of the gas station in North Fork. Jamie and I have hauled a boat, 5 fly rods and a dog over Lost Trail Pass for a few days of swinging; judging from the number of Montana plates in the parking lot, this seems to be the cool thing to do this weekend.

Licenses, propane, whiskey. Bases covered, we set up camp and get down to fishing. There's a great run out back of the campground, so we figured why not get the lines wet right away? Jamie hasn't cast a two-handed rod very much, but he did well the last time I saw him cast (2 or 3 years ago), and he picked it up quickly this time around as well. After watching clients struggle with single-handed casting all season, and recalling my own frustration with learning to spey cast, watching him naturally fire out 70 footers shortly after picking the rod up was pretty entertaining. It also pissed me off a little bit...

We had great steelheading weather most of the weekend; it rained a fair amount Friday night, which motivated us to go in to Salmon for dinner and drinks at the Shady Nook in lieu of sitting around the fire in the rain. Fried chicken night, good call. And an upstream wind kicked our asses a little bit on Saturday afternoon, relegating these right-top-hand-only casters to the left bank so we wouldn't pelt our faces with string leeches. But overall the weather was good, the water was green, and the whole weekend had that late-fall, achingly fishy feel to it.

And the steelhead were grabby. We got blanked in a couple of runs Friday evening, but connected with half a dozen fish Saturday, landing two hatchery hens. Nymphing out of the boat covered the water between swinging runs, and we hooked fish both on the swing and under the bobber. When the gal doing fish counts for Idaho Fish and Game stopped by the take-out, we proudly told her that we had caught a couple of fish. She smirked and said, "Yeah, it's been pretty good." I think we were bringing the average down.

A short note about dinner Saturday night. Campfire. Clear skies. New York strips on the grill, caesar salad, and red wine. Cookies. That is all.

Sunday we floated the same stretch as the day before. On Saturday we had been able to avoid much of the traffic...I think we only saw one or two other boats the whole day. Sunday we had a little more company, including the seemingly ever-present guy that insists on pulling plugs through the end of your swing. Whatever, the sun is shining and the fish are biting.

Jamie got the stink off his spey-casting career in fine form that day, hooking a solid 7-8 lb hatchery hen on the hang-down late in the morning. That's a solid fish on the Salmon, and Jamie was rightfully pumped.

The day was a success at that point, and we wanted to hit the road back to Missoula reasonably early that afternoon. But don't think that I didn't want a fish of my own, and the afternoon held promise. We pulled in to a run where the afternoon before I had hooked and lost two fish, bringing one all the way to the bank before the hook popped. As I swung through the sweet spot this time around, the line again went tight...a very slow, soft grab. A couple clicks off the reel, and I came tight on her. Fish on! After giving me the treatment, I was able to get the upper hand and bring her in to the shallows, snap a couple of pics, and let her go.

More than satisfied, we pushed the boat out, Jamie hitched a ride back up to the truck, and we headed back to break camp. Highly motivated on steelhead and Budweiser, camp came down in near-record time. One last stop at the North Fork store for gas and some air in Jamie's ailing front left tire, and we headed back over the pass.

The drive home went easily, especially since I didn't have to drive....so maybe I should call it my ride home. We made a stop at the Broken Arrow in Gibbonsville, which is the greatest little hole-in-the-wall-Mexican-restaurant-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-that's-never-open...and, thank God, it was open. Full bellies, high spirits, and one damn fine trip. When can we go back?

2 Out of 246,321 Ain't Bad.

I just returned from three days in Idaho where the Clearwater River and I elected to continue our love/hate relationship. I love that river...and it hates me. True, it is one of the more notorious rivers in the PNW when it comes to finding steelhead willing to take a swung fly. Finnicky. Tempermental. Call it what you will, but Clearwater steelhead love to kick ass and take names, especially when it comes to us fly-pole-swingin' hippies from over the pass. What haunts me about the Clearwater is that those fish will take a swung fly (I've seen 'em do it), and a lot of them are BIG. It's just that they choose to eat said flies with maddeningly unpredictable infrequency. With cool fall weather in place, low, clear water conditions, and fish counts over Lower Granite Dam through the roof, conditions this past weekend seemed ideal for hanging in to one of those big B-runs...


And yet, after two full days of flogging the water with everything from skaters and little traditionals on dry lines to egg-sucking string leeches on heavy tips, Karl and I had yet to have a confirmed encounter with a Clearwater steelhead. Hadn't even talked to any other fly fishermen who had touched a fish either. By the morning of day three, we were hungry and pulled out all the stops.


We launched the spam-can at Ahsahka at dawn and immediately pushed downstream to nymph the outlet pipe of Dworshak Hatchery. Classy, I know, but when you're itching to connect with some Clearwater steel of any sort there are few better bets than dead-drifting egg patterns through the outlet of the largest steelhead hatchery in the country. It's worked before. This trip, however, it was not to be.

In search of greener pastures, we moved downstream and swung flies through a historically productive run. Karl has caught several fish in this water, and made good swings through the deke...to no avail. There ain't no steelhead in this river.

To ease the unending monotony of not catching anything, I broke out the stove and cooked up some bacon and eggs on the bow of the boat for breakfast. Certainly a highlight of the weekend, so far!


Well-fed and full of foolish optimism, we moved on to Plan C and set the plug rods out. Utilizing Karl's expertise following several seasons of guiding fly and tackle anglers on this river, we pulled his favorite plugs through some of his favorite water. Nope. Ain't gonna happen.

After going through the motions of fruitlessly swinging flies through yet another beautiful, "historically productive run," all the while listening to bait chucking locals whoop and holler fighting yet another fish from the next run downstream, we'd had it.

Out came the side-drifting rods and cured eggs. We aren't purists, we're fishermen. And when all you've caught after the better part of three days fishing with more noble tactics is a sucker, a squawfish, a small jack salmon, and one trophy whitefish, all bets are off. We threaded the needle between two big jet-sleds full of Real-Tree clad enthusiasts and moved in to the next run. Drifting our tasty egg morsels in to the bucket, the rod tip registered an unmistakable tug and...wait for it...low and behold, a steelhead miraculously manifested itself on the end of my line. No shit. A short, but heated five minutes later and a 12-pound hatchery hen was on the beach. It felt pretty good just to grab one by the tail.

When you've found a biting steelhead, chances are that fish has friends. Rowing back upstream to make a second pass, we pushed in to the run and started another drift. About fifty yards below where we had caught the first fish, the rod tip once again responded; this time, there was no tugging...it was a yank. Actually it was several yanks, and after a solid hookset and 100-yard run upstream, a big buck went airborne, cartwheeled over the river, and streaked downstream. This fish was pissed-off and had no interest in remaining in the county, much less the run we had hooked him in. Karl pushed the boat downstream after the big boy, and after a couple more heart-stopping jumps and having to manipulate the fish through a fast, boulder-strewn riffle, we slid him in to calm water and put the net under him. A solid, 18-pound hatchery buck swimming in the net is a welcome sight for two battle-weary anglers on the brink of mental instability.


We may have had to resort to less-than-ideal tactics, but putting two big steelhead in the boat back-to-back at the end of the trip sure made the four-hour drive home back over the pass a little easier to swallow. Next trip might have to be to the Salmon, where the steelhead have been known to actually eat flies...

Near-Record Columbia River Steelhead Return

At the current pace, as of tomorrow over 200,000 steelhead will have passed through Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River in Idaho. More than 588,000 steelhead have already come over Bonneville Dam on the lower Columbia River, making this year the second-highest total return of adult steelhead to the Columbia system since record-keeping began in 1969. The highest recorded total occurred in 2001, when 630,200 steelhead entered the system. More to follow...but in the mean time, get out there and swing.